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The Journal of Neuroscience, September 20, 2006, 26(38):9805-9809; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3165-06.2006

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Brief Communications
Frontoparietal Activity with Minimal Decision and Control

Nicholas Hon,^1,3 Russell A. Epstein,² Adrian M. Owen,¹ and John Duncan¹

¹Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Cambridge CB2 2EF, United Kingdom, ²Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6421, and ³Department of Psychology, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570

Correspondence should be addressed to either of the following: John Duncan, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 2EF, UK, Email: john.duncan{at}mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk; or Nicholas Hon, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, 11 Law Link, Singapore 117570, Email: psyhonn{at}nus.edu.sg

In the human brain, a well known frontoparietal circuit, including lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), presupplementary motor area/anterior cingulate cortex (pre-SMA/ACC), and both the superior and inferior parietal cortex, is involved in cognitive control. One proposal is that the frontoparietal cortex holds a flexible description of attended or task-relevant information, biasing processing in favor of this information in many different parts of the brain. Here, we separate frontoparietal coding of attended information from its active use in behavior. In two experiments, subjects watch a stream of visual stimuli in a fixed location. In the first experiment, there is no task to perform; in the second, decisions are orthogonal to the occurrence of new stimulus events. Even in these simple circumstances, we find that attended stimulus changes give extensive activation of LPFC, pre-SMA/ACC and parietal cortex, whereas unattended changes do not. Even without behavior to control, these classical "control" regions are active in simple update of attended information.

Key words: attention; biased competition; cognitive control; frontal; parietal; passive viewing

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Received May 22, 2006; accepted Aug. 11, 2006.

Correspondence should be addressed to either of the following: John Duncan, Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, 15 Chaucer Road, Cambridge CB2 2EF, UK, Email: john.duncan{at}mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk; or Nicholas Hon, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, National University of Singapore, 11 Law Link, Singapore 117570, Email: psyhonn{at}nus.edu.sg

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